Hot Race in the Minnesota 8th: Chip Cravaack vs. Rick Nolan

This is another in our Hot Races 2012 series.You can read the other stories here.

Rick Nolan, the Democrat running for Minnesota’s 8th District House seat, technically might be the challenger in the race. But Nolan’s three terms in the House starting in 1975 actually outweigh the tenure of first-term incumbent Rep. Chip Cravaack.

The challenger’s greater experience is just one of the imbalances in this race. While Cravaack, a Republican, has outraised Nolan by more than $1 million, with business PACs contributing $251,000 to him and only $8,000 to Nolan, the race remains too close to call.

Minnesota’s voting history favors Nolan. Currently, both of Minnesota’s senators — Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken — are Democrats. Minnesota’s eight seats in the House are split between the two parties. The last time its 10 electoral votes went to a Republican White House candidate was 1972, the year President Richard Nixon was re-elected.

Nolan also got a huge boost last week when the United Steelworkers union endorsed him. The labor union has thus far poured $877,000 into the 2012 campaign, exclusively to help Democratic candidates.

But the bigger story of this race is spending by outside groups. As of June 30, the two candidates had combined to spend less than $900,000; later this month we’ll find out how much they’ve spent since then. But super PACs and other outside spenders had laid out $2.9 million to attack Cravaack or Nolan as of just a few days ago, with $1.6 million going to oppose Cravaack and $1.3 million to discredit Nolan.

If outside spending continues to outpace candidate spending in this extremely close race, it’ll make for a notable data point in the post-election deconstruction of the effects of Citizens United and other court decisions that opened up the spigots.

Update, Oct. 16: Nolan outraised Cravaack by over $50,000 in the third quarter, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission yesterday. In fact, the $457,000 Nolan raised is more than one-third of Nolan’s total this election cycle. However, because of Cravaack’s substantial lead before last quarter, he still has over $600,000 more cash on hand than Nolan.Outside spending is still a big factor in the contest. The NRCC laid down another $228,000 to help Cravaack just last week.

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